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I get this BS form so many "imigrants" these days! Pisses me right off! If you want a honest price ask me for a quote. If you want to haggle go to the friggin flea market.

Honestly man! If you donb't trust the contractor enough to give you a straight up price, then why would you trust him to do a proper job at all? If someone offers me an item and then when I turn away they start to try to "bargain" with me, I suddenly start to wonder seriously about the quality of that item!

And while I am ranting here all you idiots of industry that keep pandering to spanish speaking people by putting things like "Press 1 for English, Press 2 for spanish." are making the problem worse. No one made all the street signs in Brazil in English for me when I lived there!

OK time for a drink....

I r the king of the world!...or at least I get to stand on the roof and look down on the rest of yall

OK,
I've got quoted this price from the mall ac contractor to replace the unit.

I was wondering, if there is general amount of discount i can get by asking...

i know this will vary from company to company BUT
for example, would they go 20% lower of originally quoted price?

i'm fixing ac out of my pocket and i want to save as much as possible on the bill.

Seriously man, it sounds like you are in the jewelry business and I assume you guys have inflated list prices and then you can put things on sale for 1/2 price or whatever. In this business we don't normally have publicly announced list prices because each job is relatively custom. When a unit for your shop needs replaced we calculate our cost plus what we need to run our business and make a fair profit.
I never mind a customer starting an honest dialog about needing a lower price, but usually lowering the price will require some compromises in quality etc.
I'm not judging which way of doing business is better, but in this trade many contractors will be offended by a price haggler. If you are really uncomfortable with the quoted price, get a competitive bid from someone else, but be careful, proper installation is more important than low price. We could tell you lots of "low bidder" horror stories.

Anything I say here is only my opinion. Even if you understood what I said.... What I said may not even be what I meant.

Get multiple(at least three) bids. Let them know up front you are on a tight budget and see what you get. Just make sure you are comparing the same system. I wouldn't buy a car or any high ticket item without going to at least three dealers and doing my own research.

Discounts generally mean compromising quality......Probably not the best idea when it comes to HVAC. Just tell the guy who you want to do it that you want the lowest possible price. Then the contractor will use the cheapest equipment, cheapest insulated ducts, thinnest copper, cheapest thermostat, etc. I always tell customers that this price is needed to obtain a high quality installation you will be happy with, plus its a reflection of your company, you dont want other people to see a cheap install, you dont want the inspector to think you do shoddy work.